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The second-in-command in North Korea, Kim Yong Nam, said there is no problem with Kim, the Kyodo News agency of Japan reported last week. And a senior North Korean diplomat dismissed reports that Kim was ill as "a conspiracy plot."

"We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot," Song Il Ho, North Korea's ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, was quoted as saying by the Japanese news agency.